He Flirted With You
by AuthorA97
Summary: What Vastra said has been echoing in Clara's head ever since. Part 5 of '52 Weeks, 52 Stories' Prompt Challenge. Rated T for death.


Clara Oswald was a control freak. This was one of the cornerstones of her personality. Yet there was something she could never stop thinking about, no matter how much she tried shaking it away.

It was all she could think about. It would play in her head when she least expected it.

" _He flirted with you."_

" _He looked like your gentleman friend, lover even."_

" _Who do you think that was for?"_

" _Clara, I'm not your boyfriend."_

" _I know."_

" _I didn't say it was your mistake."_

Looking back on all of their travels, she saw it. She saw all the little smiles not clouded with suspicion, the times his hand slipped into her's like some unconscious desire to be close. Sometimes it was on their Wednesday's, and how eager and excited he was to see her walk through the doors.

With his new self (the grouchy, heavy on the eyebrows, Scottish, old man) it was harder to read him now. Over a thousand years away from her, from everyone, stuck in one spot.

" _I didn't say it was your mistake."_

Blimey, the Doctor might as well have been wearing it on a t-shirt. He still loved her.

Right?

She wanted to believe that, she really did.

Because she still loved him.

==HFWY==

The first time Clara noticed it was when he asked her if he was a good man.

She wanted to believe it, to look in those steely blue eyes and see the man he used to be. The man that took her to see haunted houses and the planet Akhaten, the man who called her _Impossible Girl._ The man who Clara had died thousands and thousands of times for. She wanted to see the man who listened to her pleading about Gallifrey, and ended up saving it.

What she saw was almost opposite. She saw a man willing to do anything, cross any boundary for what he thought of as right. Clara saw a Time Lord...but beneath that, she could see him pleading with her. He cared about what she thought of him, even if he said they were just _pals_.

" _She cares so I don't have to."_

" _Clara Oswald, do I really not pay you?"_

Her mind had drifted to Danny Pink. The new maths teacher at Coal Hill. She had asked him out on that date, thinking it was for the best. The Doctor told her to move on, and so she was. Danny Pink seemed like the perfect man for the job.

Until he said no.

At first, she thought it was a sign. She was supposed to be with the Doctor, but he didn't want her (or at least wouldn't admit it). She would just have to try harder when he came back. She would have to make him work for it, not just throw herself at his feet.

Until she heard Danny changing his mind.

So Clara settled. Maybe this would be a good way of getting over the Doctor. She had to put herself out there.

Guess who crashed their first date?

The Doctor.

Guess whose grandson she met?

Her own...or she thinks it's her own.

Well, that's what she got for going out on a date.

==HFWY==

Clara couldn't tell you about all the times that came after. There were just too many of them to point out.

She knows a big one had been when the Doctor had agreed to resurrect Danny. Or, not resurrect, just save. It ended up being resurrecting though. Clara hadn't thought much about the semantics at the time. She was too focus on her boyfriend who had been turned into a Cyberman.

There had been the Anachronism Party (it had been a stupid thing Clara had called it _one time,_ that he never let her forget), where the Doctor had spotted her in the crowd. He'd _hugged_ her, how was that not flirting?

" _When do I not see you?"_

" _Nobody dies here. Not one person, not one of my friends, do you understand?"_

There had been when he was a ghost.

He had explained the list to her, afterwards. He explained that his list had been completely made up after Clara. Her's was the only name that counted.

" _Everyone after you was random, but you being the next name, that's what made me confront the Fisher King."_

Clara didn't focus on that.

She _tried_ not to focus on that.

Loads of other things happened then. Should she bring up the Zygons?

" _I let Clara Oswald in my head. Trust me, she doesn't leave._ "

Clara was pretty sure if she heard that one of the programs, she'd think it was the most romantic thing ever. There and then, she wanted it to be.

Of course she wanted it to be. She still loved her Doctor. She loved him so much she'd died for him hundreds of thousands of times.

Then came the last time.

The big time.

 _Her time._

==HFWY==

" _That's just it. I didn't get a tattoo. And it's, it's counting down."_

She'd known the Doctor was rubbish on his own. She'd known he was so dependant on her as she was on him. She'd known it wasn't healthy. She just couldn't stop.

Then there was Ashildr (or Lady Me, whatever she called herself) and her strange 'safe haven for aliens' street.

Clara hadn't known how dangerous this was until she met the Raven.

" _It's called a Quantum Shade. It's kind of a spirit. Once it's bound to a victim you could flee across all of time and all of the universe, it would still find you."_

She thought she had a plan, the perfect plan. It would've been perfect. She thought the Doctor would've done this too.

But the look on Ashildr's face told Clara she had been so, so wrong.

It was after Ashildr explained the rules for the chronolock that it became real for Clara. She had to tell Rigsy and the Doctor to suck it up. She was going to die, exactly as Danny Pink had.

She had just explained this to the Doctor when the Raven cawed outside.

She remembered everything the Doctor had ever said to her, remembered Vastra's words from so long ago in that parlor. The Doctor loved her, and she was going to die to tell him she felt the same.

==HFWY==

That man...he just couldn't give in.

Clara woke up in an all-white room. According to the Doctor, this was the resurrected Gallifrey. It had taken longer to explain the reason behind her revival. Her heart wasn't beating, lungs weren't supposed to work, yeah, yeah.

So, they ran. Clara didn't know why they were running, not for awhile. They ended up in ' _a big computer made of ghosts, in a crypt, guarded by more ghosts'._

It was there that a weird woman in a red robe explained to Clara the terrible truth of how far the Doctor was willing to go for her.

"Four and a half billion years?" Clara screeched.

The Time Lord didn't meet her eyes. He stayed down by the grate. "If she says so."

Clara knelt to his side. She was a whirlwind of emotion right now. "No. Why would you even do that? I was dead! I was dead and gone. Why? Why would you even do that to yourself?"

"I had a duty of care." The Doctor argued, easily. Clara remembered those words, from a conversation ages ago with the fireproof forest. "Listen, I'm nearly through here. If I'm right, there should be a service duct under here. We'll be able to get to the old workshops. They'll have Tardises there."

She'd had enough. She knew the Doctor had enough. There was no more room for stalling or lying or anything but the truth.

"Okay, listen. I have something I need to say."

"We do not have time." The Doctor replied.

She huffed in annoyance. "No, my time, my time is up. Doctor, between one heartbeat and the last is all the time I have." She forced the Doctor to look up at her, keeping their expressions locked so he would know she wasn't lying. "People like me and you, we should say things to one another. And I'm going to say them now."

She took a deep breath, though she knew it was a reflex.

" _I do, too, you stupid man."_

 **==HFWY==**

 **AN: So...hey...I've had THIS idea for an age and a half, when I first saw the episode. This prompt challenge gave me a good idea of how to kick it off.**

 **This prompt was for** ' _ **a story set in London'**_ **, I cheated a bit by using** _ **Doctor Who**_ **. I think it's fine, a lot of this story** _ **was**_ **set in London, so HA.**


End file.
